Before the expected conversations between the United States and Iran during the weekend, the State Department retreated the idea that the discussion would be a negotiation on Tehran’s nuclear program.
“This is a meeting that is happening, right? Saturday, there is a meeting. There are no negotiations,” said the spokeswoman for the Tammy Bruce State Department to journalists.
“This is a dynamic in which the president has made it very clear and certainly the secretary has made it very clear that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon,” he said. “It is a moving base, yes. Again, it is not a negotiation. It is a meeting.”
President Donald Trump speaks during an event on energy production in the Eastern Hall of the White House, on April 8, 2025, in Washington.
Alex Brandon/AP
However, Bruce and the White House Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, emphasized that President Donald Trump is trying to reach an agreement with Tehran.
“When it comes to Iran, the president has reimposed paralyzing sanctions to the Iranian regime, and has made Iran very clear that they have the option to do: it can reach an agreement with the president, it can negotiate or there will be a hell to pay,” Leavitt said.
Bruce confirmed that Steve Witkoff, the special envoy of the Middle East, will represent the Trump administration during the session. But beyond that, both the White House and the State Department have received tight lips regarding the details about the planned conversations, which Trump announced during an Oval office meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday.
Steve Witkoff, special envoy from the White House, speaks during a television interview outside the White House, on March 19, 2025, in Washington.
Mark Schiefelbein/AP
Trump also said that the United States was already carrying out direct diplomacy with Iran for the first time since 2018, when it came out of a nuclear agreement of the Obama era with the country.
“We are having direct conversations with Iran, and they have begun. It will go on Saturday. We have a great meeting and we’ll see what can happen,” Trump said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi later published in X that Trump’s meeting would take place in Oman and that the conversations would be “high -level indirect conversations.”
“It’s as an opportunity as a test,” said Araghchi.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatolá Ali Khamenei during his annual Nowruz speech in Tehran, Iran, March 21, 2025.
Iran/EFA-EFE/ShuttersTock Supreme Leader Office
On Tuesday, the White House and the State Department remained in the initial description of the president of the next conversations and rejected the characterization of Iran of the conversations as indirect.
“That is good for the Iranians,” Bruce said about Araghchi’s comments. “I would refer to the president of the United States, President Donald John Trump.”
